{"title":"God is Green: The Catholic Church's Re-Imagination of Environmental Norms","authors":"Lan T. Chu","doi":"10.1017/S1755048322000189","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract International discussions regarding the environment have too narrowly focused on contributions by secular actors. The Catholic Church, recognized for its influential role in the democratization processes of the 1990s, also has a long-standing position regarding climate change, yet remains understudied. How can the Church contribute to the international community's debates regarding the environment and climate change? Using the framework of constructivism and Jurgen Habermas' concept of institutional translation, I argue that the Church is a norm entrepreneur that promotes a foreign policy of human/integral ecology. The most recent articulation of this foreign policy is Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si’, which was referenced by the Holy See at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in 2021. The Church's participation at COP26 was the latest animation and application of the Church's foreign policy; I examine the Church's efforts to change the narrative on the environment toward a shared, global responsibility.","PeriodicalId":45674,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Religion","volume":"33 1","pages":"742 - 761"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Politics and Religion","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755048322000189","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract International discussions regarding the environment have too narrowly focused on contributions by secular actors. The Catholic Church, recognized for its influential role in the democratization processes of the 1990s, also has a long-standing position regarding climate change, yet remains understudied. How can the Church contribute to the international community's debates regarding the environment and climate change? Using the framework of constructivism and Jurgen Habermas' concept of institutional translation, I argue that the Church is a norm entrepreneur that promotes a foreign policy of human/integral ecology. The most recent articulation of this foreign policy is Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si’, which was referenced by the Holy See at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in 2021. The Church's participation at COP26 was the latest animation and application of the Church's foreign policy; I examine the Church's efforts to change the narrative on the environment toward a shared, global responsibility.
期刊介绍:
Politics and Religion is an international journal publishing high quality peer-reviewed research on the multifaceted relationship between religion and politics around the world. The scope of published work is intentionally broad and we invite innovative work from all methodological approaches in the major subfields of political science, including international relations, American politics, comparative politics, and political theory, that seeks to improve our understanding of religion’s role in some aspect of world politics. The Editors invite normative and empirical investigations of the public representation of religion, the religious and political institutions that shape religious presence in the public square, and the role of religion in shaping citizenship, broadly considered, as well as pieces that attempt to advance our methodological tools for examining religious influence in political life.